Saturday, April 01, 2006

The Department of Grammatological Rectitude

To whom it may concern (and it may concern quite a lot of you),

The Department of Grammatological Rectitude (or DGR, for short) has been formed by an international team of grammatologists in order to identify examples of misplaced apostrophes, commas, mispellings, tautologies, oxymorons, and other common linguistic errors. In this way, by zealously pursuing the appropriate use of language, we hope to facilitate true communication amongst parties.

The DGR is grieved to note the following instances of linguistic error observed around Melbourne:

- 1 (one) bakery on Sydney Road, Brunswick, selling 'Crossants'.

We feel moved to tell the baker that he or she are indeed not selling 'Crossants', and that if they were selling 'Crossants', they would not be receiving many customers. It is certainly true that bakeries of this sort have been known, from time to time, to use ingredients of an insectoid nature; to date, however, all such instances on record are inadvertent.

Never have we seen a more blatant flouting of the 'singular noun/plural noun' rule laid out in page three of the DGR handbook.

- 1 (one) example in Dandenong of a cafe advertising 'Cafe Late'

While this example may or may not indicate something about the standard of service at this particular venue, we must inform them that the term they are looking for is probably 'Cafe Latte'.

- 2 (two) examples in a Chinese medicine store window in Coburg:Advertisement for a cure for 'Cronic Pains'Advertisement promoting 'Tasty Children Herbal Medicine'.

We are grieved to state that the phrase 'Cronic Pains' gave several of our staff chronic pains. We hope that their prescription of 'tasty children' will cure this.

Several miscellaneous items must also be reported:

- Politicians should not be accused of playing "politics" when that is, indeed, the job we pay them to do;- The "Road to the Middle East Peace Process" is not an appropriate metaphor, and can not be "derailed" before it "gets off the ground", no matter how hard it tries;- "Learnings" (as in the phrase "Essential Learnings") is not an appropriate plural. Those who use the phrase "Learnings" have very little learning to speak of.The following jobs do not exist (even if they are advertised)

12 comments:

Where's your Brisbane branch? I'd be happy to direct your attention towards some local offenders such as the Stones Corner cafe offering $2 Cappucino's. What belongs to the cappucino I have no idea and I have never felt inclined to find out.

Jenny, you should write a song called 'Strophe Striphe' or 'The Stroppy Strophe'. A song about grammar, that's sure to go down well!

LIC (hmmm, interesting acronym you've got there), you've got to wonder, don't you? You'd think that shop owners would care that they have spelling errors in such a prominent position. I have my own theory about that 'Opening Hour' sign. Maybe the guy who owned the store comes from a culture where there is only one hour to the day? Or maybe it's a cunning way of avoiding paying his workers overtime? Hmmm, have to work on the theory a bit more, I think.

Dude - I can't find an e-mail addre4ss for you. This is, per your usual fare, a funny post. But. off topic, if you have some pics of you in underwear, you can be one of my monthly "Girls of the Golden Door". If the rest of you want to know what the hell I'm talking about, go here: